Cheeks tight, jaw clamped shut, his foot hard on the pedal, he growled, “This is where I want to be.” He tapped the breaks as he swerved around a turning car, flooring it the second it was out of the way. Swallowing hard, he tried to calm his attitude.
Filled with judgment, her exhale rattled loudly.
He risked glancing over at her. Did she really think so little of him? He opened his mouth to defend himself, to pretend he would be content to whittle and eat cookies for the rest of his life.
Quickly, she schooled her expression and stared ahead.
His stomach rolled on itself. Ahab’s came into view, and he cranked the wheel hard into the parking lot, spinning the wheel and backing fast into the nearest parking spot.
She didn’t say a word, didn’t look at him, arms folded over her chest, and showed zero sign of anything.
“Trace?” he asked, his breath sharp in his throat.
“What?”
Hands still gripped on the wheel, he bit the edge of his cheek. “Tell me I’m a fucking idiot for getting defensive. Yell at me for driving like an asshole.”
In a rare, spitting tone, she breathed sharply before raising her voice. “I’m not mad, I’m… I’m…”
“What? What is it Trace? Just fucking talk to me. If I said or did something to piss you off or make you think I’m fucking around—“
Her growl thickened, her cheeks reddening as she let it out, rapid fire. “The second you’re recovered enough, you’re out of here. Because that’s what you do. My dad’s going to cry alone in his office again, my mom’s going to bake enough cookies for the entire town, foolishly hoping you’ll catch the smell from a few thousand miles away.”
“And what about you? Going to hide behind your ponytail and pastels and blame me for it?”
“You flipped off this town and this life so fast, not even glancing in the rearview. I fell apart when Haley left before high school, but then I met Finn and had—“
“Reliable codependence?”
“I had a partner. Someone I could go to when I was scared or happy or whatever. And then I had you, and you were…” She glanced at him, only a moment, and shrugged as she looked away. “And then I had none of you. So forgive me for not trusting that the prodigal son has returned and is suddenly going to build a nice house and get a gentle job and live a quiet life when you’ve never shown any interest before,” she snorted, glaring out the window.
“So it’s my fault that you only datesafeguys? Nice guys who bore the life out of you, but at least they won’t leave you behind?“ He slammed his head back against the headrest.
“You know what?” she roared and turned to face him finally. “Yes. It is your fault.”
“That’s bullshit.” Air rushed into his lungs and wouldn’t leave, wondering how things might have been different if he had come back sooner. “You dumped Finn instead of telling him that you needed more, because you were scared. That had nothing to do with me. If he’d stuck around, you’d have married him.”
Lips pursed in a tight fury, a dragon-like huff lifted and dropped her chest, and she shook her head with a refusal to give any credence to what he’d said. “He didn’t stick around. Neither did you. I dumped my boyfriend of four fucking years—twice—because he wasn’t what I needed him to be. Go ahead and call that playing it safe, but—“
Breath stifling in his chest, he closed his eyes. “It took guts,” he fired back. “Which I envy.”
“Sure.”
“Seriously. You don’t think that maybe I couldn’t wait to get out of town because I didn’t have the balls to see what would happen if I stopped to smell the roses? And what if I foolishly let slip how I feel about you, and risk losing you and Jeremy and Ellen and everything that matters to me in Foothills?”
“So you spent the next ten years pretending that we were a thing in your overactive imagination, because you didn’t have the guts to even try falling for someone else? Or even consider telling me how you felt, even after you knew that Finn and I were over?”
“I have fucked plenty of other women and have an active fantasy life that doesn’t always involve you,” he growled, closing his eyes and rewinding. “What I mean is, I have had girlfriends, and I have been in love with someone who wasn’t you. But yes, when I was lonely or… or fucking dying, yes, I thought aboutyou.”
“BecauseIwas safe? The nice girl back home, who was untouchable in her good girl relationship? What are you going to do now, when I fall for another nice, normal guy? Or,“ she sat up higher, her words coming faster. “Or god forbid, what if I really do fall foryou, and then you’re stuck here. No place to run. Nobody to fight.”
He closed his eyes and repeated her words over and over, the fury in her voice that set his chest clenching so tight he couldn’t draw in a full breath. Slowly, he said, “You’re right. I ran so far and so fast, so I could burn away the nightmares and burn off the anger I couldn’t shake.” He turned and searched her expression, willing her to meet his look. “So when I came back, I could be who I wanted to be. I came home so I could stop running.”
She faced him, her expression softening as she met his look. “Your past is a part of you. You can’t run from it.”
“It took me a while to figure that out,” he said, the smoke of the burned-out fire nothing more than an endless festering in his memory. “I’m not going anywhere. There’s no fight left.”
She reached across and rested her palm on his cheek, and god help him, he leaned in, holding completely still as she brushed her thumb over his bottom lip. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
